19th Annual Student Research Conference
Social Science
Primo Levi and the Importance of Memory and Judgment
Brittany A. Sears
Dr. Marie Orton, Faculty Mentor
Primo Levi, an Italian survivor of the Holocaust, is internationally known and credited with raising world-wide awareness of the event of the Holocaust. This project examines his memoir, Survival in Auschwitz, as a literary text, and addresses three essential themes present in it: memory, judgment, and salvation. This paper examines the author’s use of rhetorical devices, in the form of religious language, in his effort to convey a moral obligation to remember the Holocaust in a certain way. Levi calls the reader to examine and change the world’s view of morality to eliminate every shred of indifference toward people’s suffering. Primo Levi uses religious language in his memoir, Survival in Auschwitz, to give remembrance and judgment the weight of a religious obligation to his readers.
Keywords: Primo Levi, Holocaust, Memory, Judgment, Religious Language
Topic(s):Philosophy & Religion
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 10-1
Location: OP 2111
Time: 8:15